September 2000: "The Hillary Legacy" - Cistercian Preparatory School

stayed on under Fry. During the earlysixties, Bulger’s father was an officerfor the Immigration andNaturalization Service. He was workingwith a number of Hungarian émigrésincluding Fr. Denis Farkasfalvy(Fr. Abbot) and Fr. Bernard Marton.This Cistercian connection wouldinfluence Bulger years later to enrollhis son Brent at Cistercian (he graduatedin 1983). Bulger also would goon to coach football part-time atCistercian for many years underCoaches Cahill, Haaser, and Hillary.In baseball, Hillary initiallyplayed first base and then shortstop.It is rare for a man of Hillary’sstature to play the shortstop position,which requires the utmost in agilityand quickness. He might well havebeen the tallest shortstop in the historyof the Southwest Conference.After college, Hillary would spend acouple of years in the Chicago Cubsorganization.In football, Hillary learned a lotabout playing the game and coachingthe game. Despite being undermanned,Hayden Fry’s Mustangscompeted against nationally rankednon-conference teams, includingUSC, Michigan, and Navy. TheSouthwest Conference was, in thosedays, one of the toughest in the country.Nearly every game was close, butSMU finished 2-9 and 3-8 in 1963and 1964, respectively.Matched against formidable opponentsweek after week, Fry relied ona variety of motivational tactics toboost his team’s confidence. CoachHillary particularly liked a poem thatCoach Fry used on occasions whenhis team was facing a bigger, faster,more talented team (see box). Aftercollege, Hillary would continue toabsorb Fry’s wisdom for a couple ofyears as an assistant.SMU gave Tom Hillary a chanceto compete in the three sports heloved and provided him a feel forhow Division I sports programs operate.Perhaps most importantly, helearned to live by a Henry WardBeecher quote that was featured inthe sports section of the 1963 SMUyearbook, Rotunda: “Victories thatare easy are cheap. Those only areworth having come as the result ofhard fighting.”DURING THESUMMERof 1989, Coach Hillarymet with his seniors todiscuss the comingseason. Nearly 70 percentof the startersfrom the previous year had been lostto graduation or injury. Although healways preached confidence, herebefore practices began, he was honestwith the team’s leaders.According to John DiPasquale ’90,one of the ’89 captains, Hillaryexpressed to them “a slight hint ofreservation” about the team’sprospects. But this did not alter hisexpectations for his seniors. “Lead theteam to perform its best,” he said.“He also expressed his commitmentnot to use the season as simplya rebuilding year but to go all out tobeat the odds that were stackedagainst us,” DiPasquale recalled.“After those conversations in thesummer, I never heard him talk aboutour weaknesses again, only ourstrengths. It was his belief in us thatkept us together as a team during oneof the toughest seasons thatCistercian has ever had.”“We wanted to play for him,”SMU’s lastthree-sport lettermanCoach Hillary is pictured here as a sophomore basketballplayer, a freshman quarterback, and a seniorshortstop. Hillary started at tight end and defensive endfor the Mustangs during his junior and senior years.Photos courtesyof Mike Bulger6The CONTINUUM